Menotti's Ideas Have Inspired Coaches All Over—Including the U.S.'s

The U.S. national soccer team's dramatic run to the 2014 World Cup knockout round has thrilled and captivated Americans across the length and breadth of the country.

But some 5,000 miles away, in a quiet corner of Buenos Aires, it has also brought a glimmer of satisfaction to an elderly Argentine with wild gray hair, thick sideburns and a profound craving for cigarettes.

His name is César Luis Menotti, and to soccer fans world-wide, he is known as the charismatic, chain-smoking coach who led Argentina to its first World Cup triumph in 1978. Less known is the role he has played nearly four decades later as tactical guru, inspirational mentor and coaching swami to U.S. coach Jurgen Klinsmann. (How Jurgen Klinsmann transformed team USA's play.)

As the Americans face Belgium on Tuesday for a spot in the quarterfinals, their progress in Brazil owes an outsize debt to a 75-year-old coach known as El Flaco (the thin one).

For more than 40 years, Menotti has been the standard-bearer for a wide-open brand of attacking soccer. His central belief is that the key to victory isn't defensive organization or keeping hold of the ball, but trying to score as many goals inside 90 minutes as humanly possible.

Maurice "Mo" Edu played for Team USA at the 2010 World Cup. He joins Sara Murray to discuss the team's strengths and what to know ahead of Team USA's face-off against Belgium. Photo: Getty Images

His ideas have influenced the likes of Jorge Valdano, Marcelo Bielsa and Pep Guardiola, who made a pilgrimage to Argentina to visit Menotti before becoming head coach at FC Barcelona.

But Klinsmann may be his most devoted disciple. Ever since he played under Menotti during a brief spell at the Italian club Sampdoria in 1997, Klinsmann has been a champion of his attack-attack-attack vision of the game.

During his coaching career, he has sought out Menotti's advice. In separate stints with Bayern Munich and the U.S. team, Klinsmann hired Martín Vásquez, one of Menotti's former players, to be his assistant coach.

"Every coach I worked with had an influence on what I am doing today," Klinsmann said, "and I had some phenomenal coaches."

U.S. Soccer team coach Jurgen Klinsmann told The Wall Street Journal in May that a World Cup win is doable--a turnaround from his comments in December about the team's prospects.

It is no exaggeration, though, to say that nearly every aspect of Klinsmann's coaching philosophy bears the imprint of Menotti.

"There was this chemistry between the two of them," said Danny Dichio, a teammate of Klinsmann on Menotti's Sampdoria squad. "With Menotti, it was a whole new approach, not just tactically, but even down to the training. Jurgen was like a sponge."

As Germany's coach in the mid-2000s, Klinsmann transformed a squad long known for its defensive style of play into a fast, freewheeling side that racked up 14 goals in seven games and reached the semifinals of the 2006 World Cup.

Granted, no one is going to confuse Klinsmann's U.S. team with the Argentina squad that Menotti guided to World Cup glory. But there are signs that the same positive style of play is taking hold.

In its opening two games here against Ghana and Portugal, the U.S. had 23 shots and scored four times. "He has the wish to create an offensive team," said Mario Kempes, a member of Argentina's 1978 team, of Klinsmann. "It's difficult because he can only use the players that he has at his disposal, but you can see the idea is there."

Even Klinsmann's commitment to developing a distinctly American style of play evokes Menotti, whose success in the 1970s came from blending modern concepts and techniques with a traditional Argentine brand of soccer known as La Nuestra.

"This is the key for Menotti," says Kempes, now an analyst for ESPN. "You can only succeed by playing in the way which comes naturally to you. For Argentina, this means quick passes, running with the ball and scoring goals."

The shared belief in the benefits of attacking soccer is far from the only link to Menotti. His influence also extends to Klinsmann's work on the training field.

In a sport usually seen as free-flowing and spontaneous, Menotti introduced the idea of pre-rehearsed moves to the training field. His drills involved endlessly repeating specific patterns of play, which were invariably designed to spread the ball out wide and get as many players as possible charging into the penalty box.

Brad Evans, a U.S. midfielder, said Klinsmann has brought those same sequences to Team USA training sessions. "There's six or seven [patterns] that we work on in any given day," he said. "And the big thing with those pattern plays is getting a late runner in the top of the box and making sure we've got numbers in the box."

On some occasions, Klinsmann has even turned to Menotti for tactical pointers ahead of a key game.

On the eve of Germany's round-of-16 showdown with Sweden at the 2006 World Cup, Menotti met with Klinsmann and advised him to instruct midfielder Torsten Frings to fall back into the defensive line to combat Sweden's dangerous counterattack. Germany dominated the game and won 2-0 as Sweden managed just two shots.

The success of the U.S. team under Klinsmann is in some ways a vindication for Menotti, whose attacking philosophy fell out of favor as defensive soccer took hold of the game more than two decades ago. Despite leading Argentina to its first World Cup and the under-20 championship 12 months later, Menotti was fired after failing to advance beyond the second round at the 1982 tournament in Spain.

He returned to club soccer and had brief stints at FC Barcelona, Atlético Madrid and Boca Juniors, but encountered little success. Menotti had surgery to remove a tumor on his lung in 2011 and he hasn't coached again—or smoked again—since.

It isn't known whether Klinsmann dialed up Menotti to exchange ideas ahead of this World Cup, but the Argentina coach surely would have had some useful advice.

Klinsmann kicked up a storm when he omitted Landon Donovan from his squad for the tournament, but it is unlikely that Menotti would have been impressed. In 1978, he was vilified in Argentina for his decision to leave out a 17-year-old named Diego Maradona. He was only forgiven when he lifted the trophy.

"This is one thing every coach can take from Menotti," Kempes said. "If you win the World Cup, no one can criticize you."

Good article but the irony is that Klinsmann is like a Menotti trying to conduct a Tango Orchestra when in reality all the players are Salsa players. The game we just lost (fair and square) to Belgium is proof of this. I have a great deal of difficulty seeing the article's proclaimed vocation of this US team to attack relentlessly. In this current incarnation of Klinsmann squad, attack is a side effect of suddenly finding yourself with the ball at your feet. For most of the time, the team is ready to defend. Not to attack. This was the story of all of our games in this world cup.

I personally take joy in the fact that Green scored our only goal. It points the way to the 2018 cup. We may finally have found a true striker for our team. The spectacle of one after another missed goal during today's game just shows us that perhaps (and I do not say this to discredit our coach performance with this USMNT), and after all, we needed Landon Donovan. It is difficult to imagine Landon wasting any of those opportunities to score and win the game. Clint and Bradley need for the sake of the team to leave the MLS and go to play in Europe. Can you imagine Lebron James playing in the Greek Basketball League or Feliz Hernandez playing in the Mexican baseball league? Top players, to remain top, need to play in the top leagues. Gonzalez is a sure bet to get millions euros offers to go play in Europe. What a performance he had in this world cup !!

This USMNT was an experiment and as such I proclaim it a successful one. Klinsmann is well under way to build a team that can beat any of the major teams anywhere else in the world. That is, if the US players cooperate.

This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. Distribution and use of this material are governed by our Subscriber Agreement and by copyright law. For non-personal use or to order multiple copies, please contact Dow Jones Reprints at 1-800-843-0008 or visit www.djreprints.com.